![]() If they have, they would not be eligible to donate. If donors, regardless of their gender or orientation, have a new partner or have had sex with more than one person, they would then be asked if they’ve had anal sex in that three-month window. The FDA’s proposal would base donor eligibility, when it comes to potential HIV risk, on how many sexual partners potential donors have had in the previous three months, and whether they’ve had any new partners. Jorge “JC” Chamorro, HIV prevention manager at the Rainbow Community Center in Concord, is pansexual and on PrEP, and therefore unable to donate blood under the FDA’s proposed guidelines allowing more gay and bisexual men to donate. “It sends a very toxic message, that after all these years, we still have all these stereotypes and disgust around gay men having sex.” Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, a gay man who took to Twitter shortly after the proposed policy change was announced to push back on the PrEP ban. “I understand where they’re coming from, but it’s once again taking the most extreme conservative position around gay men and no one else, because of a theoretical risk that likely will never happen,” said state Sen. The FDA needs more data, they say, to determine just how small that risk is.īut the result for now is that the proposed policy, though a vast improvement on the former blanket ban, will still turn away tens of thousands of gay and bisexual men – along with a smaller number of straight men and women also on PrEP – because they’re using the best tool available to prevent HIV infection. The reasoning, say the FDA and blood safety experts, is that there remains a theoretical risk that people taking PrEP could become infected with such low levels of virus that it would evade detection on the tests used on all blood donations. Of particular concern, the new guidance leaves intact a key restriction that excludes anyone who uses pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP, a drug highly effective at preventing HIV infection. Over the past five years, the rules slowly relaxed, but this latest proposal marked a monumental shift: No longer would anyone be deemed ineligible based on sexual orientation alone.īut the Food and Drug Administration’s proposed updates – expected to be adopted in a few months – are still imperfect and punitive, many advocates say. The strict policies put in place in the 1980s, in the grimmest years of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, were needlessly stigmatizing and discriminatory, gay rights advocates have long said. When federal regulators announced late last month that they would lift the vestiges of what had been a decades-long ban on gay and bisexual men donating blood, the response from LGBTQ groups who had long fought for the change was celebratory. The latest update to the FDA’s guidance for blood donor eligibility essentially does away with blanket bans on men who have sex with men, but still does not allow anyone taking PrEP to prevent HIV infection to donate. The most up-to-date eligibility information can be obtained by contacting the Donor Client Support Center at 1-86.From left, staff members Milo Knight, Rae Messer, Jorge “JC” Chamorro, Julien Frost, Christian Aguirre and Parisa Zamanian chat during a team-building meeting at the Rainbow Community Center, an LGBTQ+ center in Concord. There may have been some changes to these criteria since the last revision date. ![]() The guidelines listed below were last revised on 08/01/17. ![]() The final determination of eligibility is made at the time of donation. The criteria listed are provided as guidelines to assist you in determining whether you may be eligible to be a blood donor. Donor eligibility rules are intended to protect the health and safety of the donor as well as the patient who will receive the transfusion. Therefore, rules may differ between programs. Other rules are determined by the medical professionals at specific blood centers, or with other regulatory bodies. The majority of donor eligibility rules are specified by the Food and Drug Administration for every collection center in the country. ![]() Specially trained technical staff are available at each blood collection center and details of each donor’s health and activities are discussed in a confidential setting prior to blood donation. ![]()
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